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I ECONOMIC I 

|PR1NCIPLES| 

I OR I 

I HOW WEALTH IS PRODUCED | 

j AND I 

I HOW IT IS DISTRIBUTED 



BY 

ELIZA STOWE TWITCHELL 



= 



PRlGEv, 15 GEN^S 



Copyright, 1894, 
BY ELIZA STOWE TWITCHELL, 

WoUaston, Mass. 

Illlllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll^ 



ECONOMIC 

PRINCIPLES 



OR 



HOW WEALTH IS PRODUCED 



AND 



HOW IT IS DISTRIBUTED 



ELIZA STOWE TWITCHELL _ / 



Copyright, 1S94, 

BY ELIZA STOWE TWITCHELL, 

Wollaston. Mass. 



K 



PEEFAOE. 



This little book was written for the purpose of interesting 
those who have neither the time nor strength for a study of 
that great work, Progress and Poverty. The author hopes, 
especially, to interest women in the economic and ethical 
principles which are so lucidly set forth in that book; to show 
the chief cause of poverty and its remedy; to arouse in the 
hearts of noble women a keen sense of the mighty issues 
which underlie the great question of taxation; and to show 
the far-reaching importance of the labor question, which 
presses so imperiously and ominously for solution, in the clos- 
ing years of this century. 

Eliza Stowe Twitchell. 

WoUaston Heights Mass,, 1894:, 



INTEODUCTIOK. 



In the fifteenth century man began to study the globe upon 
which he lived. Kings pawned their crowns ; princes ex- 
hausted their resources in fitting out ships to explore distant 
lands. 

Gold and silver were then supposed to be the only form of 
wealth; and so, wild dreams of discovering a golden El 
Dorado, with inexhaustible treasures, fired the heart ; and 
this zeal, coupled with a religious enthusiasm, gave the move- 
ment the impetus of a new crusade. 

The sixteenth century was devoted to colonizing, or taking 
possession of these newly discovered countries. Meeting 
with little resistance among the natives, the greed of each 
nation culminated in wars for the possession of land ; each 
demanding it in the name of their king or pope ; planting the 
cross of Christ in the wilderness, not as a symbol of human 
brotherhood and dependence upon a common Father, but as a 
symbol of might, in the hands of the few ; who, in His name, 
plundered, conquered and took possession. 

Much as a farmer owns his farm, and is lord over his pos- 
sessions, so the king owned the land and the people upon it, 
which his lords were allovv-ed to control and govern, as his 
agents. Civil liberty rested only in the hands of the few. 
The many were born with backs upon which the few were 
born to ride. 

In the seventeenth century man began studying more 
closely his relations to his Creator. Speculations over salva- 
tion, faith, election, the state of the damned, engaged the 
mmds of some of the deepest thinkers : while others, students 
of the ancient classics, not only questioned the very existence 
of God, but of the external world about them. Meanwhile, 
the great mass of mankind Jived on unconscious of these 
speculations and the tremendous bearing they had upon every- 
day life and the evolution of society. Here, again, was seen 



6 \ INTRODUCTION. 

the docirine that the good things of life were intended only 
for the few. Salvation was free, but by election only a few 
could be saved. 

In the eighteenth century man began to study nature. To 
find a forc^ in steam that could be utilized ; to analyze sub- 
stances; learn the composition of plants; of his own body; 
and, as his knowledge of nature advanced, to find that, within 
a certain ran^^e, he was lord of it and could use, mold, re- 
fashion at will. 

In the nineteenth century a passion for the study of nature 
disclosed law, order, unity, harniony everywhere. It was dis- 
covered that gravitation, working throughout space, upholds 
all things ; evolution, working throughout time, has created 
all things. What need was there for Spirit? Nature was 
cold, cruel, relentless, permitting only a survival of the fittest. 
Faith alone kept alive a reliance upon wisdom and love, be- 
cause of man's unsatisfied need and hope in a glorious here- 
after. 

Whoever will look back fifty years will be astonished at 
the evolution of ideas, in science, government, industry, ;^i- 
losophy and religion. Earth, air, sea. sky, remote stars, lan- 
guage, ancient ruins, religions, historical events, every ani- 
mate and inanimate thing has been searched and its secret 
wrung from its silent lips, until sufficient data has been ob- 
tained and classified, and the result is, such a flood of light 
has been thrown upon all things great and small, near and 
remote, that it has transformed the thinking of mankind, arid 
added, almost beyond computing, to the possible comfort and 
happiness of every human being. 

People no longer believe that kings and princes rule by 
divine right; though it is still imagined that only a few are 
born with brains, who, by that divine right, ought to rule the 
many, failing to see that the progress of civilization depends 
upon the steady uplifting of the lowest class in society, and 
that this progress has been in the past and will be in the fu- 
ture, dependent upon and in proportion to their civil, reli- 
gious and industrial liberty. 

People no longer believe in the salvation of only a few. 
The door to divine love has widened until there is some dan- 
ger that knowledge of sin and its deadly consequences may 
be forgotten under devout forms and ceremonies. 

The age is not only a scientific, but an industrial one; and 

f 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

because the advance in the science of political economy has 
not kept pace with its sister sciences, the world still believes 
that the many were born to labor for the few who only have 
the brains to get and to keep. "The poor ye have always with 
you," they cry, and though the many are granted civil and 
religious liberty, yet they are industrial slaves. 

In political economy the same fundamental principles are 
taught in our schools today as fifty years ago. Since Ricardo 
discovered the great "law of rent" there has hardly been a 
change, until Henry George, by his thoroi:^gh review of the 
whole field of economic thought, proved that the laws of 
wages and interest correlate with the law of rent; breathed 
new life into the cold, dismal science; showed not only the 
great cause of poverty, but its remedy, and proved that the 
spectacle of want in the midst of plenty is but a maladjust- 
ment of forces at our command, which, if rightly used, would 
give abundance to all who are willing to labor. But the debt 
of gratitude we owe to one who has solved this problem, great 
as it is, is slight compared to the light these truths throw 
upon those of religion. 

As gravitation reveals God's power throughout space ; as 
evolution reveals His wisdom throughout time : so these social 
laws reveal His love and care for mankind, bringing us sud- 
denly into the Presence— not of a cruel, relentless force, but 
of wisdom, benevolence and love. 

Materialistic thought has reached flood-tide. These new 
truths, like a revelastion of God's love, will turn back the age ' 
of skepticism, and the next century is sure to be one of 
spiritual advance, as well as of industrial liberty. 

May God hasten the day lest many perish ! 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRODUCTION. 



What is production? A man with a sharp stick is digging 
clams on the beach. He is producing clams. The beach, his 
laho7\ and the stick are the three factors in production. This 
most simple mode in no way differs in principle from the 
most complex form of production, with its boss, its army of 
wage earners and its modern machinery. Each has three, and 
only three, factors : Land, labor and capital. 

In the first example, the stick, though a rude instrument, 
may be termed capital. In the second, though the workers 
are many, they are all (including the boss) laborers. Though 
the machinery is comj^lex, it is capital. Though the material 
used may be wool, tin, cotton or glass, yet all come from 
land ; and the wages of all are, or should be, all that they 
produce. 

Does the laborer dig clams for the sake of the labor, or for 
the clams ? For the clams, certainly. They satisfy his desire 
for food and, inasmuch as they do this, they are his icealth. 
When he produces more than he needs for his immediate 
wants, he has accumulated some wealth. 

Take a more complex form of production : Ten men are 
engaged in the industry of fishing. Some prepare the boats ; 
others the nets and bait ; women cook for all to eat. Here is 
a division of labor, in which many more fish are caught, and 
that, too, with less labor than when each man prepares his 
own boat, bait, net and food. Less boats, etc., are required, 
and much labor is saved. All who assist in performing any 
of this labor (including the women) as truly catch the fish as 
those who pull them from the water. 



10 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

Take a still more complex form of producing wealth: the 
manufacturing of calico or woolen dress goods. In the South- 
ern States some are growing and preparing the cotton; others, 
in California or Australia, the wool; some in Asia, the madder; 
in Africa, the indigo; while in England, the cotton or wool is 
being spun and woven by elaborate machinery, which others 
have invented, and still others built at great cost. This 
machinery is made of iron, wood, steel, copper, zinc, which 
men in distant parts have produced from the earth; moreover, 
this machinery must constantly be fed by coal. 

Meanwhile, each of the many combined and distant 
workers must eat, be clothed, housed, etc. Some grow or pre- 
pare all or parts of their own food, make all or parts of their 
own clothing; while others do only some one thing, and by so 
doing, obtain their food of the distant farmers and their 
clothing ready made. 

Some do nothing all day long but shovel coal into furnaces; 
others keep accounts; some plow, reap, make butter; others 
teach, write books, paint, gather news for others to arrange 
in newspapers. 

When a man produces one thing alone — as the digging of 
the clams — we recognize, easily, that the result of his labor — 
the clams — are his wages. Now, when he produces any one 
(or parts of any one) of these million things, the reward for 
his labor is either a part of the things he produces, or else a 
money equivalent, which he can use in exchanging his labor 
for the labor of others, who may be near or remote. 

When he receives the equivalent for his labor in money, 
the transaction is only half completed; for money will satisfy 
no desire and therefore is not wealth. It must be exchanged 
for food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, before the transaction is 
completed; for men do not labor for money, but for what 
money will buy; for something that will satisfy human de- 
sires; — ivealth, which is always some substance from Mother 
Earth, upon which some labor value has been impressed, so 
as to fit it to satisfy some want. Money, though playing an 
important part in production, is simply a convenience — a 
labor saving machine — which asts, first, as a measure of 
values, and, second, as a medium of exchange. 

It is the same with the capitalist. Labor value is first 
given to him, then wages are paid, and this process may go 
on, week after week, month after month, before the capitalist 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 11 

is able to turn the finished product into money; yet labor is 
constantly adding value, which always equals, often far ex- 
Cjeeds, the wages paid; moreover, labor advances value before 
it is paid for by capital.* 

When the capitalist turns the finisiied product into money, 
the transaction is only half completed, for with him, as with 
the. wage-earner, money is not wealth, only a representative 
of wealth, which he at once re-invests in fresh materials, and 
fresh labor value; thus by going round and round, the real 
wealth increases at every point — not just at the one point 
where it is measured in money — but all the time that labor is 
adding value. 

But the farmers, the merchants and the manufacturers are 
laborers as well as the wage-earners. It can truly be said of 
each that in producing, or helping to produce, any one thing 
(or parts of one thing) that can be exchanged for money, each 
has produced everything that his money will buy in the 
market; for he who eats potatoes, drinks coffee or reads news- 
papers as truly produces them (if they are bought by the re- 
sults of his labor) as^the farmer, the Arabian or the news- 
gatherer. It is his demand for these things that causes them 
to be brought into being. Moreover, anything that interferes 
with this free exchange of the results of each man's labor in- 
fringes upon his rights. To freely exchange that which one's 
own right arm produces is as much his right as the free use of 
the arm itself. 

It is this natural co-operation, this subdivision of labor, 
that makes civilization possible. How few comforts would 
we possess, today, were each to produce his own food, clothing, 
shelter, etc. ! Most people would be living in huts, eating out 
of wooden bowls, clothed in hand-knit garments. What gov- 
ernment could so nationalize all industries, like this natural 
growth, into greater and still greater subdivisions of labor, 
where each is free and yet dependent ? 

To promote this growth, three things are necessary: peace, 
liberty and a knowledge that each in working for his own 
highest interest is working for all — a sense of brotherly de- 
pendence and also of independence, fraternity and liberty. 

*Tlie only exception to this is when wages are paid for personal 
sei'vices; then, altliough labor value is given, it is not used by the em- 
ployer to sell again, but to be consumed by him, using it for his comfort 
or happiness; such wages are not paid out of capital, but out of wealth. 



12 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

Up to a certain point, the natural desire to look out for self is 
right. Should each one think it necessary to supply, the wants 
of another, instead of his own, and all did the same, few real 
wants would be satisfied. Each can best look after his own 
interests, knows what kind of labor he is best fitted to per- 
form, and what products are best suited to his soil and climate. 
The important thing to notice here is, the more workers 
and more complex the subdivisions of labor are, and also the 
freer and broader the exchanges, the easier and more abun- 
dant will be the wealth produced; and if this ever increasing 
wealth could be distributed to the producers in proportion to 
their labor, then, the more laborers, the higher would be their 
wages; whereas, now, the more laborers, the lower the average 
wages, because some have power to control distribution. 



CHAPTER II. 
production; classification. 



The last chapter was intended to show production as a 
whole; how, by the subdivisions of employments, by a natural 
growth in co-operation, if each individual was free to do as 
he pleased, secure in all his natural rights, his labor would 
result in both conferring and receiving benefits. 

This picture is only partially true today, because all gov- 
ernments more or less interfere w^ith the free flow of exchanges. 
In some countries the hand of excessive and burdensome tax- 
ation is so heavy as to almost stop production. 

This tax upon trade is called a "tariff" to soften it, and 
when particularly excessive, is called "protection" — to sweet- 
en it. The gullibility of the unthinking is in proportion to 
the vast sums annually wrung from labor by those who are 
benefited by the game, and is one great cause why produc- 
tion is not more equitably distributed. 

In this way vast sums are collected annually from the peo- 
ple, over one million dollars a day in this countrj^ one-third ~ 
only of which goes into the public treasury to be used for the 
benefit of all, and the other two-thirds into the pockets of 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 13 

those who are ready to affirm by all that is great and high 
that there is nothing outside of religion so good for a poor 
man as to allow the rich to ''protect Mm.'' 

There is, today, not a college or a text-book in our land, of 
any repute, but declares the tariff upon an article to be a tax 
upon that article: and that the tax is paid by the one who 
consumes the article; and that "protection" is only a more 
burdensome tax. Cobden settled this question in the repeal 
of the corn laws. Herbert Spencer has shown most clearly 
that such governmental interference with trade is an infringe- 
ment upon human rights. Trade is one of the greatest pro- 
moters of peace and wealth, uniting hostile nations in friendly 
intercourse. 

There are four modes of production; Adapting, gro^A^ng, 
transporting and exchanging. In each of these, labor adds 
some value to earth's substances. By adapting; as when a 
tree is turned into boards, doors, chairs; sand made into 
glass; iron ore into stoves; granite into houses or bridges; 
copper into wire, kettles, lamps; clay into china, etc. By 
growing; as when man adds the forces of nature to his labor, 
and raises cattle, fruit, grains, etc. 

But the grain in the barn, boards at the mill, cattle on the 
plain, glass at the factory, are produced only for those near 
enough to make use of them to satisfy their desires. They 
are not yet produced for those living at a distance, until 
transported, and perhaps exchanged. Just as the first pro- 
ducer adds a value to the raw material by his labor, so the 
transporter adds a value by carrying it to those in need; and 
the exchanger, by keeping constantly on hand a fresh supply. 
Wherever one can purchase of the first producer and so do 
his own transporting and exchanging, at less cost to himself 
than the added value of the transporter and exchanger, he 
usually does so; for each one seeks to satisfy his desires by 
the least exertion. But if he has no time, nor conveniences 
for so doing, his labor spent in other directions will easiest 
pay the added price. 

Subdivisions of labor generally make it easier for all. But 
the wealth produced by exchanging is far greater than the 
simple convenience of retail, or saving by wholesale. 

The transporters and exchangers are the great agents that 
facilitate the divisions of labor, and thus advance civilization, 
adding greatly to the power of each man's labor. 



14 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

Herein lies the mistake of the Grangers, in considering the 
middle-man a non-producer; whereas wealth is produced 
more rapidly by exchange than by any other mode, else each 
man would be limited to the work of his own hands, and 
fruits of his own soil and climate. 

CLASSIFICATION OF THE PARTS. 

Everything in nature seems a confused jumble until some 
scientist discovers, amid the thousand substances looking so 
unlike, that there is some one important property each has in 
common. He then classes all these under one division; an- 
other group under another division, until, at last, all the ani- 
mals in the world are under four grand divisions; all the 
plants under two. When any subject, however great, is thus 
simplified, the mind can easily grasp it. Both the clearness 
of a subject and its conclusions depend upon correct classifi- 
cation. 

In political economy the following is the most natu^ral ar- 
rangement and the one adopted by Henry George: 

First: All things created by God, such as natural re- 
sources, the earth, sea, mineral deposits, winds, tides, every 
force of nature — all these may be called land — God's gift to 
man. 

The second class includes the useful exertion of all man- 
kind, whether wage-earners or employers, workers with brain 
or muscle. This broad class is called labor. 

The third class includes all the things which labor has 
produced from land (or the products of land) to satisfy human 
desires. This class is termed ivealth. 

There are, then, strictly, but two divisions, land and labor. 
But since man is a tool-using animal, he no sooner produces 
wealth than he takes some of it to assist him in producing 
more. To distinguish this wealth from that which is being 
consumed (or used) to satisfy desires, it is called capital. 

A loaf of bread in a bake-shop is capital, for it is being 
used to produce more wealth by exchange. On the table it is 
wealth, for it is being consumed. A sewing-machine used to 
make garments for sale is capital; used to make garments for 
the family it is wealth, for the machine thus used is being 
consumed (worn out) to satisfy needs or desires. 

It will be seen, then, that capital is easily turned into 
>vealth, and vice versa. But these two terms, cajntal and 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 15 

wealth, should never be confused with land and labor; for 
land and labor are but the two parts, which taken together 
produce wealth. To call either wealth would be the same as 
saying a part is equal to the whole. 

Herein lies the chief mistake of the Nationalists or Social- 
ists, in wrong classification. When they use the terra land, 
they mean the same as described above. But the word labor, 
with them, means only the wage-earner, i. e. some men, not 
all men. But their worst confusion lies in their use of the 
terra capital. By it they mean, some men (i. e. capitalists), 
some wealth and some land. They have, then, only one clear, 
distinct factor— land — and even this they constantly confuse 
with capital. 

Hence, the labor question with them is: How shall some 
raen, with some wealth and some land (capital), be prevented 
from overreaching some other men, with no wealth and no 
land? 

This, at first sight, seems just what we wish to know; but 
it takes for granted two things, neither of which is true: 
First — that the present condition is a natural one, and hence 
nature's methods might be improved upon by governmental 
interference; and, second— that labor is a poor, weak thing, 
needing either capital or government to employ it, and were 
it not for capital, could obtain no work. Present conditions 
do differentiate a capitalist class and a wage earning class; 
but a natural condition would develop a growth toward co- 
operation, in which, more and more, each man would become 
his own employer, possessing capital. Socialists are right in 
condemning present methocfs; but before we undertake to 
build up elaborate governmental industries, let us be sure we 
understand nature's social laws — their simplicity and justice. 
, The stud}'- of the relation of so7ne men to other men is not 
political economy, for economics knows no classes, but deals 
only with fundamental principles that apply alike to all men. 

We seek to discover what power there is in each of the 
three factors that produce all wealth, land, labor and capital, 
or what is their relation to each other. Should it be found 
that one controls a certain power, strong enough to enslave 
the other, the way out will be to take from all men such 
power; not passing laws against the rich for the benefit of the 
poor, but treating all men alike before the law; giving no, one 
a chance to reap where he does not sow, and likewise, no one 



16 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

sowing where he cannot surely and easily reap the full reward 
of his labor. 



CHAPTER HI. 
production; relation of the parts. 

The last chapter gave such a picture of constantly increas- 
ing wealth, and that, too, with an ever decreasing effort, that 
the question might be asked, Is not the supply of nature ex- 
haustible? Certainly not, for no force, or matter, is ever lost. 
Man himself being an emphasized part of these, S 

subject to the same constant round of transfor- I 

mations, yet becomes more and more capable of ^ __'__q 

controlling these changes, as his knowledge of DID 
himself and the material and psychical world | 

about him increases. S 

In the above diagram let the lines represent nature's sup- 
plies and the spaces the demands of mankind, each of which 
is supposed to stretch out to infinity. Place man at the cen- 
ter at birth, where the supply is greater than the demand. 
This natural condition is but the first indication of God's care 
for mankind. With growth, demand increases. Then, be- 
tween demand and supply, God has set exertion; before ma- 
terial wealth, labor; before spiritual peace, prayerful seeking; 
before intellectual culture, study; before moral virtue, resist- 
ing temptation. 

As the supply is infinite, so should the demand be also. As 
civilization advances, if liberty, fraternity and equity be pre- 
served, this very growth of individual character and of the 
social organism will make it increasingly easier for each suc- 
ceeding generation to overcome resistance, until demand, 
resistance and supply become the keenest of pleasures — God's 
method in the evolution of society; but one which man him- 
self can assist or retard. For, behold! this social organism 
already seems to possess a body, with cities for its ganglionic 
nerve centers, connected by rail and telegraph for bones, 
nerves and muscles. It has a body, but not consciousness. 

Let us examine the relation or function of its parts, re- 
membering the broad classifications. The function of land is 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 17 

to furnish forces, standing room and materials for labor to 
work into wealth. The function of capital is to assist labor 
in the four modes of production: In adapting, by furnishing 
him with tools, machinery, factories, etc. In growing, by 
furnishing tools, seed, cattle, fences, drains, barns, etc. In 
exchanging, by furnishing stores and supplies, also tools. In 
transporting, by furnishing him means to take advantage of 
horse power, winds, streams,- oceans, steam and electricity. 
Capital, then, is but little more than the multiplication of the 
powers of labor— called by some ''stored up labor." The 
steam engine, alone, is daily performing more work for man 
than one thousand million men could do, and electricity will, 
in the near future, do vastly more. 

The function of labor is to direct the whole; simply to 
move, change, transform. Labor, then, is not out of employ- 
ment because there is not capital enough to employ it; for 
capital is also out of employment, and is turned into wealth 
for the time being; but were there a quick market, it would 
soon reappear as capital, ready for labor to employ it — for it 
is labor that employs capital, and not the opposite— since 
capital is the child of land and labor. Neither does capital 
maintain laborers; they maintain themselves by selling their 
labor and by consuming their wages. 

Neither does capital furnish labor w^th materials for work 
— they are furnished by land, and were all men permitted 
equal access to land, there would be no limit to work until all 
wants were supplied. 

Wealth, then, is the result of the power labor has obtained 
over the resistance of matter. Value measures that power; 
and money measures value. To illustrate: If labor possessed 
some fairy's wand, which, by waving it in the air, trees, 
stones, sand, iron ore, etc., could be made to turn themselves 
into proper shape, and then, by another wave of the wand, 
these materials should form themselves into a house of any 
size or shape labor wills, we could easily see that the house 
(or wealth) was the result of the power labor had obtained 
over the resistance of matter so as to fit it to satisfy human 
desires. That is exactly what labor has done, but by a slower 
process. What is the value of that house? The labor power 
it will require to make another like it — measured in money, 
perhaps one thousand dollars. Mr. A. has on hand a thousand 
dollars, which sum represents the stored up labor value of hig 



18 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

own, or his father's exertion. He hands it to B. and B. gives 
him possession of the house. 

But, it will be asked, did not the material cost something? 
Yes, but the cost of material is also a labor value, but one 
showing itself under an entirely different form, viz., in the 
value of the land from which it is drawn. Where the land 
has no value, this material costs nothing. The value of land 
depends upon the number of laborers competing for its use, 
rising as those numbers increase; while the value of such 
things as are properly termed wealth, falls as laborers in- 
crease, because the labor cost of producing them is lessened. 
So long as there is a demand for wealth there will be no limit 
to the supply, till the limit of land is reached. There is really 
no limit to land; but as all land does not yield equally of these 
natural materials— that yielding the best being limited — the 
competition of labor for these advantageous places fixes the 
price of land, and this, in turn, fixes the rate of wages and of 
interest, as we shall see more clearly in the next chapter. 

What must be especially noted now is, that the value of 
land is also a labor value. Were there no laborers competing 
for its use, land would possess no marketable value, even 
though it contained fertile plains, deposits of gold, or safe 
harbors. 

Neither would laborers compete for its use, except that 
each one, in seeking to satisfy his desires by the least exertion, 
naturally seeks the land which will yield him the most for the 
least effort. Since all do the same, the price of land becomes 
a thermometer which shows the labor saved in producing a 
certain amount of wealth upon different locations. The same 
law holds, whether this wealth is produced by adapting, growr 
ing, transporting or exchanging. Let an oil well suddenly 
burst forth from land where there is a large population or 
within easy reach of such. The ease with which wealth is 
suddenly produced upon this land is at once reflected in the 
price of it. Labor gets about the same wages and capital 
about the same interest. 

The same result would follow were a gold, coal or copper 
mine discovered, or if a large factory containing important 
labor saving machinery should suddenly be erected in a popu- 
lous district, or if a new railroad were run into a quiet, sleepy 
town. Fresh facilities for transportation causes a land boom. 
This also explains why land in great cities, where wealth is 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES, 19 

rapidly being produced by exchange, is of such high value; 
for such land is, in its way, exceedingly productive; also why 
rich farming land lying a long distance from market is often 
of less value than poorer soil lying nearer a market; and 
also why the worn out lands of New England, which today 
possess neither fertility nor advantages of market, have so 
decreased in value, while prairie lands in touch with the 
world's markets, by growing towns and increase of railroad 
and steamboat facilities, possess a high value. 

This explains why wages and interest are but little higher 
than they were fifty years ago, when compared with land. 
Yet labor produces certainly eleven times more wealth, gen- 
erally, and in special industries many thousand times more; 
yet neither wages nor interest are eleven times higher; but 
the price of land is much higher. This increase in the pro- 
duction of wealth, under present conditions, will not flow to 
wages or interest, but results in raising the price of land, or 
economic rent, as it is termed. The market value of land in 
this country has increased enormously during the last fifty 
years, not all equally, but in proportion to its wealth produc- 
ing capacity. Some farming lands have decreased in value, 
yet choice spots can be found in all our great cities valued at 
the rate of from four to fifteen million dollars per acre. 

To recapitulate : The value of all such things as are termed 
wealth (things produced by labor), is a labor value, while the 
value of land is a labor saving value, which increases as pop- 
ulation increases. 

Is it not clear that labor is not a poor weak thing, that 
must beg of capital for a chance to work, or be fed by chari- 
ty; but is rather the creator of all value; the employer of all 
capital; the producer of all wealth? 



CHAPTER IV. 

DISTRIBUTION. 



Is the value of one's land, his horse, or his day's labor 
worth about so much because that is the price he has set upon 
it, or is its value fixed by some great natural law beyond his 
control? Were each one to receive the price he asks for his 



20 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

land, labor, or capital, it would be much like making wishes 
horses for each one to ride. God has created the world on no 
such haphazard plan as that. 

The laws of rent and of wages are as fixed and stable as 
the law of gravitation. This, at first sight, seems cruel, just 
as it seems hard that men may drown if shipwrecked, or re- 
ceive injuries if they fall from high places. Were the laws 
of nature not uniform, everything would be chance or guess 
work. When these laws are once understood the forces that 
control them are no longer our masters, but like winds, tides, 
steam and electricity, become man's servants. Then the ques- 
tion of how to abolish undeserved poverty will be as practical 
and certain as the laying of the ocean cable or engineering 
Brooklyn bridge. 

* As in production there are three terms, so in distribution 
there must be three to correspond. The earnings of capital 
are called interest; of labor, wages; of land, rent. A man's 
profits may be made up of only one or of all three of these. 
The term interest means something more than the price given 
for the use of money in the open market; for that depends 
much upon the risk it takes, though the average rate of inter- 
est on money is a fair gauge of the average earnings of capital. 
When such rate is low, capital, generally, is earning but little; 
unless it takes great risks or controls some monopoly. As wageg 
are the earnings of labor, so interest is the earnings of capital. 
Their laws are the same, since they are but subdivisions of the 
same thing. Whatever helps or injures one, helps or injures 
the other. 

The term rent is more important. Wishing to distinguish 
between the annual interest on the value of capital {i. e., 
things produced by man's labor) and the annual interest on 
the value of land {i. e., nature's resources wherever and when- 
ever they begin to have a marketable value) we distinguish 
them by calling the first interest and the second rent. Often 
the value of bare land is spoken of in round numbers as so 
much economic rent, having no reference whatever to houses, 
barns, fences, drains, or anything labor has produced; all such 
being capital. 

To whom rent is distributed will be considered later. Our 
question still is the relation of all men to the earth; and we 
seek to learn by what natural law value is distributed between 
rent, wages and interest. Is it always divided equally, or 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES, 21 

does one get the lion's share; and if so, when and how? No 
matter how fertile land is, whether it contains gold, copper, 
oil, lumber, or diamonds, it will have no marketable value 
until men begin to compete with each other for its use. Then 
its price will not be fixed by what is asked, nor by the amount 
of wealth it will produce, but by the abundance or scarcity of 
such land; or, (what means the same thing) by the number of 
laborers competing for its use. 

It is the demand for land, together with the supply, that 
fixes its price; and this price of land fixes the price of wages, 
and of interest thus: The lowest earnings of labor (wages) 
will be what labor can make off land having no value {i. e. , no 
rent or purchase price). If this land is fertile, or lies near a 
good market, it will be quite productive, and so the earnings 
(or wages) of labor will be high. Since no rent or purchase 
price is paid, all that is produced will go to wages and interest. 
This fixes the price of wages upon better land that is rent- 
paying. For labor and capital will work nowhere for less than 
they can make upon land freely open to them. So long as 
there is plenty of good, productive land freely open to labor, 
the competition for the best land will not be strong enough to 
raise its value very high; nevertheless, the difference between 
the wealth produced upon the best land and that upon the 
poorest (by the same amount of labor) will not go to wages 
nor interest, but will go to rent, fixing the price of rent at this 
difference. Because labor and capital can move about, while 
land cannot, wages and interest, therefore, remain about the 
same, everywhere, while competition for the easiest wealth 
producing places gives all to rent above that which labor and 
capital can make upon the poorest land freely open to them. 

This is Ricardo's law of rent, about which there is no dis- 
pute among economists of repute. It is generally stated in 
these words- ''The rent of land is determined by the excess of 
the produce it ivill yield over that ichich the same application 
can obtain from the least productive land in use.''' But people 
who have never heard of Ricardo understand this law, be- 
cause they see it in daily practical application about them, in 
land booming towns, or in the greed to own more land than 
can be pro^tably used, because increasing population will 
soon double or triple its value. This explains why wages and 
interest are always fully as high in new countries, where land 
is cheap, as in old, where rents are high. 



22 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 



The wealth that was produced annually, in this. country, 
fifty years ago, might be illustrated by a small diagram di- 
vided into three parts representing rent, wages and interest. 
As most land then had little or no value, the part going to 
rent would be small compared with wages and interest. 



pi 

CI 




3 





Rent. 


Wages. 


Interest. 



Let the wealth which is now produced annually be repre- 
sented by a much larger diagram. The value of land has in- 
creased enormously during the last fifty years, the part that 
goes to rent being far more than is here represented. But 
note, though wages and interest are larger than fifty years 
ago, they receive far less in proportion to the wealth they pro- 
duce. This is caused by a natural law and by the greed to 
own more land than can be profitably used. Should produc- 
tion increase a thousandfold, the average wages and interest 
would still be fixed at the amount labor and capital could 
earn on land freely open to them. 

Fifty years ago the land that was freely open to labor in 
this country was so vast and so productive in its varied natural 
resources that it seemed inexhaustible. At that time the whole 
country was poorer, far, than today, yet we had no tramps, 
professional burglars nor army of unemployed; likewise, no 
millionaire class— twenty -five thousand of them today owning 
over half the wealth of this country. 

When the blood of the body is congested in one part, un- 
less relief is obtained, a long chronic illness is the result; for 
if one member suffers, all suffer. But if the congestion be- 
comes too severe, if the strain put upon the life forces that 
hold all together be too great, the end is dissolution. 

Only twenty-six years ago, when Charles Dickens was in 
this country, he expressed great surprise that he saw no beg- 
gars in Boston; no visible signs of cruel poverty. But we 
need not go back twenty-six years; the changed condition of 
the farmers during the last five years is sufficient to satisfy the 
most skeptical. The great mass of people already feel keenly 
and cruelly the drift of this downward movement. 

It is the duty of every woman who loves humanity to take 
an earnest and intelligent interest in these problems, which 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 



23 



are problems of the heart rather than the head; for they are 
questions of right and wrong, of man's relation to the earth, 
his indefeasible right to the property his own labor creates; 
and, also, the absolute justice of giving all men an equal 
chance to obtain a livelihood by their labor. 



CHAPTER V. 

DISTRIBUTION. 



The law of rent is so important, the more it is studied the 
more light is thrown upon existing conditions. A diagram 
may help to a clearer understanding:* 

"----•■"1 

i i 



IX 






[ 






X 


X 1 




y 


X 


\r : ; 


X 


K 


X 


V: i 


K 


>< 




X 


N^ 












\x^ 



10 <i 8 7 fo S 

Let the above diagram represent land possessing different 

*The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to Professor 
Thomas E. Will: for it was his use of a similar diagram, in explaining 
the law of rent, that aided her in writing this chapter. 



24 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

degrees of productiveness. All land lying in column A may- 
be said to yield 10 per cent wealth by a given amount of labor. 
Land in B yields 9, in C 8, in D 7, in E 6, in F 5. 

In settling upon this land, people naturally settle first upon 
A— the best. When this is all taken, the overflowing popula- 
tion must settle upon B. But the same amount of labor on B 
will yield only 9 per cent wealth, while those owning land in 
A have 10. The A's have now an advantage of 1 over the 
B's. Here is a beginning of unequal opportunities. For the 
B's surely were not to blame for being born ten years later, or 
from families that had not the good fortune to obtain the best 
land when it was freely open for settlement. The fact that 
the A's have an advantage of 1 over the B's fixes the rent line 
at 1. All above goes to rent; all below to wages and interest 
For, since those living in B can make but 9, they will be as 
well off if they live in A and pay 1 for rent; they will then 
have 9 left. This competition for land in A fixes the average 
wages of all in A and B alike. 

Soon B is full and people are crowded to C. Here the same 
amount of labor will produce only 8 per cent wealth. The 
C's may as well live in A and make 8, paying 2 for rent; or 
live in B and make 8, paying 1 for rent. This competition 
fixes the rent line at 2. All above goes to rent, all below to 
wages and interest. 

People owning land in A can now begin to live without 
labor on their rents, while the average price of wages and in- 
terest is pressed down to 8. Everything in the end comes out 
of labor; the more rent receives, the less will wages and in- 
terest receive. Many begin to see how things are going and 
so take up land in C or purchase what they can afford in B and 
A. The effect of this is to press population out to D, which 
will give only 7 per cent wealth with the same labor, and 
presses the rent line down to 3. 

Again, an increasing population, and more land is held out 
of use, and the rent line drops down to 4, and so on down to 
5. All above this line now goes to rent; while below, labor 
and capital are fighting each other in a life and death struggle, 
combining against each other, not seeing the real cause of their 
trouble. 

The land that is now freely open to labor and capital (in F) 
is poor and unproductive. What labor can make oft^ this land 
fixes the average rate of wages and mterest in A, B, C, D and 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 25 

E; for all above line 5 goes to rent. Capital, being hard 
pressed, cuts down wages. Laborers, being poor, cannot buy 
what they need; this gives a dull market. At last one or two 
heavy failures occur, and there is a panic. Then both labor 
and capital stand idle, until on every street you see signs, 
"To Let," "To Let." By this you know that rents have fallen, 
i. e., the rent line 5 is pushed up a little, so that labor and 
capital can now begin again on easier terms, and there is an- 
other eight or ten years' rush of good business. But with 
every recurring panic they grow more and more severe. 

Now suppose in E there should suddenly be discovered a 
coal mine or oil well, or a thriving city should spring up. In 
each of these cases the land would be exceedingly productive 
and its value rise in proportion, which is here represented by 
the dotted lines. Labor and capital would rush here and for 
a time receive higher wages and profits: but all above line 5 
would soon go to rent, and laborers would work as they now 
do in the coal mines of Pennsylvania for sixty-five cents a day. 

Political economy is called the dismal science, because it is 
one of the saddest things to realize that, this rent line pressing 
down as it does upon all alike, till it reaches the poorest men 
with land freely open to them, is controlled by a law of nature 
which cannot be changed. At first sight it setnis a cruel one. 
It is God's plummet line of justice let down, forcing all to 
suffer in proportion as human rights are trampled upon. For 
the right of the lowest ones in the community to an equal- 
share of the earth is as sacred in God's sight as the right of 
the highest. 

But this picture, dark as it is, does not tell the whole 
story; for not only does this excessive weight of rent rest upon 
labor and capital, but they are also burdened with many and 
grievous taxations, pressing down so heavily that the wheels 
of industrj'^ almost stop; and in the midst of plenty there is 
starvation. The last census discloses the fact that the land of 
this country is owned by ten per cent of the population, leav- 
ing ninety per cent landless, or, what amounts to the same, 
mortgaged to the full value of their land. 

Look at the chart once more, and note how unequally this 
rent is now distributed — those owning land in A receiving 5, 
in B 4, and so on, while all those living in A, B, C, D and E, 
who own no land, are as badly off as those pressed out to F. 
That wealth which labor produces should go to labor in the 



26 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

form of wages; and that which capital produces should go to 
capital in interest; and that which land values produce, should 
it not also go to them who produce it, and not to landlords? 
Landlords do not produce this value. It is produced socially, 
as we have seen, by the growth of the community. This is a 
fact; and, moreover, one upon which all economists are 
agreed. The only point where we disagree from the old school 
is, to whom does this rent belong— to (dl who produce it, or to 
only ten per cent of them ? 

Supposing there could be discovered a method by which all 
of this rent, above line 5, could be fairly collected, and then 
equally distributed to all. The effect would be like loosening 
iron bands of pressure about the body which threatened con- 
vulsions, bringing almost instant relief. The first effect would 
be to make it unprofitable to hold land out of use, and at the 
same time more profitable for all users of land. The result 
would be that those squares in the diagram now marked with 
crosses, representing land held out of use. would be again 
open to labor and capital population would flow to this land, 
and the rent line would rise to 3, or, in other words, rents 
would fall. Then the emigrant wagons would be seen coming 
home, for no one would care to live beyond civilization when 
better land was freely open to them: and even in the midst of 
great cities there would be plenty of land— for each family a 
home, The building industry would receive an impetus, and 
with this, all other allied industries would soon feel the rush; 
wages and interest would both rise, and there would be no end 
to the increasing production of wealth until there was an end 
to human wants. Rent which now acts as a barrier, checking 
production and increasing the gulf between classes, would 
then be the strongest of forces, both in the production of 
wealth and in promoting more equal conditions in life. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DISTRIBUTION — THE SINGLE TAX. 

The previous chapters have emphasized two facts. First, 
the more laborers, and also the wider and freer the exchanges 
are, the cheaper and more abundantly will wealth be pro- 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 27 

duced; and were this wealth justly distributed, the tendency 
would be toward more equal conditions among laborers, 
which, m turn, would bring about a closer association, puri- 
fying public morals, advancing refinements, knowledge and 
culture. Did nothing interfere to prevent this natural growth 
toward equality and freedom the amount of wealth that would 
be produced annually, even with present methods of pro- 
duction, would astonish the most inqredulous. Present meth- 
ods would soon give place to new inventions, and greater sub- 
divisions of labor, till, not only wealth, but what are now 
termed luxuries, would be within the reach of all. 

The second fact is the opposite of this. As numbers in- 
crease, as labor-saving machines multiply and cheapen pro- 
duction, the value of land rises; moreover, this value fairly 
represents the benefits of co-operation to each member of the 
community. This enormous imvilege now goes to a few. 
Could it be enjoyed by all equally, benefits conferred by each 
to society, and benefits received by each from society, would 
be equal. Land values would then operate in addmg the 
strongest force possible, both in the production of wealth and 
in Its equitable distribution. . But going as it now does to 
about ton per cent of the population, the effect is to not only 
check production enormously, but to broaden the gulf between 
classes, resulting in such contradictions as too much vacant 
land and too many people; too much poverty and too much 
wealth. 

Had the Creator fashioned the earth entirely uniform, the 
same soil, surface, climate, products, everywhere, one place 
had been as advantageous to man as another. And then, had 
He formed man without the social instinct, since he could ob- 
tain his food as well in one place as another, mankind would 
now be scattered, solitarily, over the whole earth, elevated 
but Jittle above the brute; for it is by the added powers that 
come to man by association that progress is chiefly made. 

These two divine laws — social instinct and diversity of soil 
and climate — are the chief cause of rent, which now acts as 
a barrier to further progress; creating inequalities and pre- 
venting association, enslaving the masses, and blinding the 
few to their perilous condition. As nature provides the new- 
born infant with food from the overflowing breast, so nature 
has provided this growing organism. Society, with a fund — 
land values — which is always sufficient for its growing needs, 



28 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

What more clear than the fact that when this fund is not put 
to its divinely intended purpose, the result in both cases is the 
same— congestion, disease, decay, starvation? Does this not 
show that the Creator took thought not only of man's indi- 
vidual needs, but of his social wants also, and included society 
and government m His divinely intended plan that — 

^ 'There are no classes or races, but one human brother- 
Jaood? 

The question of questions, of importance alike to rich as 
well as poor, is How shall this fund be distributed equally to 
all? For if it IS right and just, there must be a way, and 
whatever is right must benefit not a few only, but all. To do 
this is easy We already collect, annually, some of this eco- 
nomic rent to defray public expenses, wherever taxes are 
levied upon bare land according to its value. We have only 
to remove all taxes from labor and capital, placing instead, 
one single tax upon land values, to collect this economic rent 
for public uses in which all will share equally. 

But we must accustom ourselves to look upon taxation in 
a new light as a payment of each to the community, for only 
such benefits as are received by each, and so is no tax. Our 
present system of taxation is a relic of barbarous ages, which 
endeavors to tax each citizen in proportion to ins wealth and 
consumption, to squeeze out of each as much as possible. It 
is nowhere fairly or justly levied, but savors of robbery, 
breeds corruption and fraud; for it puts a premium upon ly- 
ing and evasion. 

The proposed new method is as much an improvement upon 
the old as the art of printing is over that of making books by 
the slow process of writing them out with a pen. And the 
train of improvements which will follow its introduction will 
not be short of the blessings humanity has received from the 
invention of printing. Since all men are equally entitled to 
the use and enjoyment of God's bounties, and also to what is 
gained by the general growth and improvement of the com- 
munity, which their presence has created, no one should be 
permitted to hold such si^ecial privileges without giving to. 
the whole a fair return for so doing. 

The value of the land in every community exactly repre- 
sents such privilege. Not the privileges of the past, but of the 
present. Farmers living where land has little or no value, 
would pay little or no tax. But should one man, or a few 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 29 

men, choose to own all the rich coal fields of a state, another, 
the oil lands; should railroad corporations own, as they now 
do, land enough to make six large states the size of Iowa; or 
foreign syndicates own nearly as much of American soil; in 
short, should one man desire to own the whole round globe, 
there would be no objections, provided, he paid the- inhabitants 
of the world the full market price for such special privilege 
of ax)propriating their inheritance. This is the only way in 
which God's bounties, and that value which is created by the 
progress of society, can be equally distributed and enjoyed 
by all. 

Land values have been compared to the drifts of snow after 
a blustering storm, the value being represented by the depth. 
The single tax would shovel all this snow (economic rent) an- 
nually into one pile (the public treasury), and then distribute 
it equally by using it for public revenue. We would do this, 
first, because, it is just, but more especially to break the power 
of monopoly in land values — the one great monopoly upon 
which all others rest, making it forever impossible for idleness 
to produce a scarcity by force, when there is no scarcity in 
nature; thus placing the farmers and honest mechanics at the 
mercy of monopolists — honest labor begging for employment 
as a boon, labor idle and capital idle, till people everywhere 
forget that if labor had its rights it could not only take care 
of itself, but would keep the wheels of industry and capital 
constantly and profitably employed. 

The labor question? It is far more than a question of 
rents, or of wages; of the gulf between the millionaires and 
the slums! It is a question of human rights! the contempt of 
which has led to present conditions. "But if, while there is 
yet time, we turn to Justice and obey her; if we trust Liberty 
and follow her, the dangers that now threaten will disap- 
pear.'' 

A PICTURE OF THE FUTURE. 

Imagine for a moment the single tax in full operation. 
The value of land is highest in great cities, and where all such 
industries exist as are now monopolies, such as mines, rail- 
roads, telephones, telegraphs, gas, electric roads, power, light 
and heat. This value alone (without taxing capital or any- 
thing labor has produced) would be sufficient for most public 
expenses, beside keeping all steam and electric railroad beds, 



30 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

electric wires, telegraphs and telephone lines in good working 
order, and as open and free to the public as our country roads 
now are; yes, far more than that — sufficient to extend electric 
car lines, light, power and telephone service freely to every 
fair-sized town in the country, knitting them all together by 
easy and cheap access, uniting city, town and country in one 
pleasant society, with advantages for all. Steam and elec- 
tricity w^ould thus relieve man and horse alike from severe 
drudgery. 

The next highest land values are in manufacturing centers. 
These would tend toward co-operation, each laborer either 
owning some share in the mills; or, electric power being dis- 
tributed throughout the town to each house, work would be 
done at home and paid for by the piece. The tenement house, 
as now known, would disappear, for the crowded city would 
flow out to the pleasant country, filling it with life and cheer. 

Farming lands have the next highest value. This industry 
w^ould also tend toward co-operation, for more and more 
machinery would be used. The homes would be built along 
the great highways (the farms lying in the rear), where every 
advantage of electric light, power, car and telephone service 
would be so cheap as to be nearly free to all, and thus bring 
farmers into neighborly proximity to all social advantages, 
such as village or city schools, libraries, museums, churches, 
concerts, and deep lesson of life from works of art and plays 
by great masters. The life of the farmer would be no longer 
isolated, but easy, pleasant and attractive, wath leisure 'for 
culture and travel. Such a state of society, where freedom 
and increasing sociability abound, w^ould promote morality 
and culture. Would not even the present millionaires make 
a good bargain, to give half their wealth for citizenship in 
such a state? 

And this picture is by no means a fanciful one. It is a 
faint representation of what would follow the right use of 
God's bounties to all; just as now the wrong use breeds in- 
justice and misery, poverty and crime. A young mother with 
a child at her breast is a picture which inspires the most 
tender emotions; for it represents unselfish love, trust and 
repose. A society in which all shared equally in the bounties 
of a Heavenly Father would soon develop a most unselfish 
spirit and brotherly love among its members as well as an un- 
faltering trust and repose in the Divine goodness that had' 



ECONOMIC PRiNCtPLF.S. 31 

rescued and redeemed it. The way there is certain! but the 
road is steep. Who will lend a hand? 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SINGLE TAX VIEA\'ED PRACTICALLY. 

But it will be asked, '^What shall one do to lend a hand?" 
Study the subject. Read the works of Henry George, or the 
single tax national organ, a sample ot which can be obtained 
by addressing a postal card to The Single Tax Courier, 810 
Olive street, St. Louis, Mo. This paper aims to show the 
progress of the movement and to propagate its doctrines, the 
farreaching truths of which, once clearly apprehended, there 
will be found enough to do; for justice will cry aloud, and the 
cause of such painful contrasts as unearned wealth with un- 
deserved poverty will be revealed. 

For what can be more unjust than that this ever increasing 
sum — rent — which reflects the growth of population, as well 
as the social advantage of every improvement and invention, 
should go almost exclusively to the landlords; and, moreover, 
to them so unequally? Or what can be more unjust than to 
permit a few citizens to own the larger part of the earth upon 
which all must live, and from which all wealth is drawn, and 
by this means be enabled to dwell in luxurious idleness upon 
the toil of others, making toil and want seem a disgrace, and 
even unearned wealth an honor? 

What more monstrously unjust than that one man must 
pay a brother for the right to live and work upon God's earth — 
for the right to use that which the labor of neither has cre- 
ated? 

Such a system is, in fact, if not in form, as wrong as 
chattel slavery; for it takes from the producer a part of the 
results of his labor, without giving to him any return, and 
leaves the lowest wage-earner but a bare living for all his toil. 

To divide ground rent equally among all is, in fact, to 
enable all to share equally in the value of the land; a scheme 
far in advance of owning land in common. By this method 
the laud itself— its fertility of soil and advantages of site and 
location — becomes possessed more securely by the user than 



33 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

under the present system, by which the one who owns the 
mortgage really owns the land, and the sum annually paid to 
him, though called interest, is in fact rent. 

Viewed thus broadly, the labor question ceases to be merely 
a strife between capital and labor — a war between classes — 
but a question of human rights; one in which every lover of 
humanity and freedom, be he landlord, capitalist or wage- 
earner, must rise above party or class., and behold in it a 
transcendent opportunity for good; one in which every earnest 
woman, every mother, must feel a keen interest, for it touches 
life on every side, materially, intellectually, morally and 
spiritually. 

Moreover, the battle is now on. It is the old one of the 
rights of the people against the might of the few; and it is for 
us — children of the present generation — to say whether civiliza- 
tion shall go forward with leaps and bounds as yet undreamed 
of, aided by the most important discoveries and inventions the 
world has ever known, or whether a night of gathering, 
thickening despotism shall set in,. lulling us to sleep with soft 
words of protection and glittering promises. 

The Joshuas of New Zealand have somewhat turned the 
course of the sun in that bright land, and the result is their 
threatening night has been changed to a rising morn, full of 
promise and sign to us. 

But it will be urged: "All this is theory. Show us 
something practical. How is the single tax to be brought 
about? And when in operation, what will be its effect upon 
me?" 

In Hyattsville, Md., the single tax was partially tested 
for one year. Taxes were taken off all improvements and 
only increased upon land values from fifteen cents to twenty- 
five cents upon one hundred dollars; yet a much larger revenue 
was raised than under the old system, for the reason that all 
land was assessed at its true value. Many who most strenu- 
ously opposed the new system were surprised to find their tax 
bills so much lessened. 

To illustrate: It is said that improved land in the state of 
Illinois is assessed at the rate of $11.18 per acre; while unim- 
proved land, of the same value, is assessed at $4.03 per acre. 
We would add these sums and divide by two, which would 
result in assessing all land, having the same value, at $7.60 per 
acre. In cities the contrast is still more striking; land worth 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 33 

sixty dollars a square foot is frequently assessed for only six 
dollars a foot. 

In Michigan there are thousands of acres of mining land, 
containing millions of dollars' worth of ore, practically pay- 
ing no tax; yet the mineral lands of Minnesota, which belong 
to the public school fund, yield, in rents, a yearly revenue of 
forty thousand dollars. The single tax would distribute all 
land values equally, whether such value is wrapped up in 
country acres, mining, coal or oil lands, railroad or electric 
power franchises, or valuable foot frontage of corner city lots, 
the bare land of which sometimes yields a yearly rental 
revenue at the rate of fifty thousand dollars per acre. 

Contrast this with the annual yield per acre of farming 
land, on which no labor is applied, and see if the single tax 
would not be an immense gain to farmers over the present 
system. Were all land values distributed equally, the farmer 
would own his land, as now; but his share in the land value 
of his town or state would be far greater than at present and 
it would be returned to him, yearly, in two ways, first by 
greatly lessening his direct taxes and doing away with all in- 
direct taxes, and second, by giving to him social advantages 
and benefits now hardly dreamed of 

In 1893 Hon. Tom L. Johnson made an investigation of 
land values in Washington, D. C. . employing six of the best 
real estate experts. It was found that, starting from the 
center of the city, the land used for business purposes was 
worth about twice the value of improvements. Land lying 
beyond, where were located the best residences, was about 
equal to the improvements; while beyond this circle, where 
were the homes of the middle class, land was worth about 
half the improvements, proving that if taxes were raised on 
land values alone, the great majority of the people would pay 
far less than at present, yet a much larger revenue be ob- 
tained, for two reasons: First, non-property owners who now 
pay no direct tax, but w^ho do pay ground rents into private 
pockets, would then pay their ground rents into the public 
treasury; second, all lands, including vacant lots, would be 
assessed at their true value. The assessed land value of Wash- 
ington was then about seventy-six millions, but its real value 
was over three hundred millions. 

But the greatest blessing which the single tax will bring, 
when carried to its full realization, will come from that 



34 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

which, at first view, would seem the most cruel part of it, viz., 
gradually increasing the tax on land values, until by absorb- 
ing most of the ground rent, the selling value of land would 
be nearly eliminated. For to tax this value away from each, 
individually, is not to destroy the value, but to own it col- 
lectively; a method by which each one would share equally. 
Moreover, to tax the selling value of a man's lot or farm away 
from him would affect him so little he would hardly be aware 
of it until he wished to sell, and then, as the selling value of 
all land would be alike reduced, it would work him no injury, 
provided he wished to purchase again. 

If he were a farmer and wanted farms for his boys; or a 
merchant and wished to settle his children near him in homes 
of their own, the ease with which he could do this would be 
in proportion to the cheapness and abundance of land about 
him. 

Were he an Astor, or one whose income was derived chiefly 
from ground rents, he would always retain the rents received 
from his houses (which, strictly speaking, are interest on 
capital), and as the ground rent was gradually taken from him, 
where it injured his interests as a landlord, it would help him, 
both as a capitalist and laborer. The only class to whom the 
single tax would prove a real hardship would be those who 
now perform no labor. 

By taxing the value of land away from the individual and 
giving it to the community it becomes no longer profitable to 
hold land out of use; so plenty of good productive land could 
be obtained by paying a nominal sum to the owner, and the 
annual rent to the community. Labor would seize such oppor- 
tunities quickly. There would be land enough for all, and 
work enough for all, and that, too, at good wages. Labor 
would thus become free, and capital the servant, though a 
useful and helpful one. The masses would hardly feel the 
change, at first, except to wonder at the cause of good times 
just as now they wonder at the cause of stagnation in busi- 
ness. 

[ All indirect taxes would then be abolished — taxes which, 
now rest so heavily (even though unconsciously) upon the 
masses, the weight of which each one can compute for him- 
self; for, according to Thomas G. Shearman — one of the best 
authorities on the subject of tariffs and taxation — each labor- 
er's indirect taxes amount, on an average, to at least seven- 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 35 

teen per cent of his yearly income; which sum, under the 
single tax, would go to purchase added comforts. 
' But, it may be asked, is it not confiscation to tax rents 
away from those who now enjoy them? Not if they are en- 
joying them unjustly. The landlord who labors upon his land 
has almost disappeared from American soil, and we have be- 
come a nation of landlords and tenants. Such landlords never 
have, and never will, add a farthing to the wealth of the 
world. Their office is merely a privilege to collect toll from 
wealth producers. They produce neither the land nor the 
rent. Moreover, rents are created annually, "Next year's 
rental value will be entirely produced by next year's people." 
Should the people cease to labor, or should they vacate the 
land, rental value would vanish. 

Many wealthy landlords, understanding this and beholding 
the injustice of the present system, have become earnest ad- 
vocates of the single tax. They are ready and willing to take 
their stand on the side of right, trusting God that it prove, in 
the end, best for all. 

The single tax, which seems so easy and so simple, contains 
a mighty truth and a farreaching power It restores to every 
child born upon this planet, not only its God-given birthright 
in the land, but also gives to it a rightful share in that rich 
inheritance from the past, of wealth, of knowledge, science. 
art, virtue and religion, to be held as a sacred trust and 
handed on, increasingly, to posterity, until there shall exist a 
state wherein the principles of that inspired Declaration of 
Independence and the sublime teachings of our Lord Jesus 
Christ shall become the cornerstone of the Church, the Forum: 
the Market, and be engraven on the hearts and manifested in 
the lives of the people. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SINGLE TAX POLITICALLY AND MORALLY CONSIDERED. 

One hundred years ago the world was split into factions 
over religious creeds and dogmas, mistaking minor points of 
difference for important truths. Today, blind allegiance to 
party, or a bigoted distrust of everything outside the teach- 



36 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

ings of one's own newspaper, exaggerate diiBferences in eco- 
nomic thought and obscure fundamental relations until the 
"political pot" seems a boiling, seething mass of unending 
talk and contention — a hopeless, unsolvable riddle to the great 
majority of people — except, perhaps, editors and politicians. 
Beneath the surface it is simple enough. There are but three 
schools of economic thought — all others are subdivisions; and 
the principles they advocate are not new, but as old as govern- 
ment and questions of human rights; though they continually 
present themselves under new forms and crystallize about new 
ideas, which are to mold the social organism. 

The socialistic school may be described as believers in the 
omnipotence and omniscience of human law, whether the 
power to make such law rests in the hands of a desjjotic mon- 
arch or in a supposed majority of a republic; in either case, 
this power becomes king and undertakes to rule the doing and 
almost the thinking of the whole people with either open or 
tacit assumption of infallibility. 

Formerly, this power was directed to the building up of 
the state; latterly, for the correction, support and guidance of 
the individual. 

If an abuse is discovered, well-worded petitions, supported 
by a most formidable array of signers, invoke honorable bod- 
ies to pass a law removing it; which honorable bodies pro- 
ceed to do, or not to do, according as they view its effect upon 
their personal political prosperity. Should the law pass. the 
third reading and become duly engrossed, the petitioners (in- 
cluding the signers who really took some interest in the bill), 
sleei) soundly, imagining the law will execute itself; but too 
often this is but the beginning of trouble; for the law begets 
bribery, and Ijribery begets perjury, and perjury begets costly 
litigation, until a whole army of political parasites are able to 
live and thrive upon the slime and corruption that ooze from 
abuse and crime; all being supported by the honest, overbur- 
dened taxpayer. Nevertheless, this ancient fetich — omnipo- 
tence in human law and omniscience of legislators — still lives; 
and many honest, public spirited citizens still put their trust" 
in reform by repressive measures, believing that somehow, 
somewhere, legislators must grow suddenly wiser, after elec^ 
tion than before, and are thus enabled to regulate trade, raise 
wages; put a stop to strikes; shorten the hours of labor; turn 
Oil 01 on the needed supply of gold or silver; abolish the 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES, 37 

sweater, and the employer of child labor; close the saloon; 
reform the drunkard; purify morals, and emancipate woman; 
all this without seeking to discover and remove the causes 
that have produced these excrescences upon our civilization; 
without interfering with the conditions that have made re- 
pressive measures necessary; without seeing that, in nine 
cases out of ten, the need of governmental interference is to 
modify, or counteract, some previous unjust legislation. 

This school of thought has, today, fresh advocates, whose 
noble enthusiasm for a better, brighter day for humanity, 
tempts them to far bolder schemes of governmental regula. 
lation; from the modest demands for the exploitation of all 
monopolies, to the absorption, by government, of all capital, 
and the abolition of competition, interest and wages. The 
socialists behold clearly one side of the shield—man as a social 
being. 

The extreme opposite of this school behold only the other 
side of the shield— man as an individual being. These apos^ 
ties of liberty have also high hopes for a better day for the 
world. Almost worshipers of the two grand words, liberty 
and fraternity, they are yet unable to see that man possesses 
any natural rights, and the divine laws of nature, acting up^ 
on and through society, are to them so many circumstances, 
or conditions; not God's commands, which ought to regulate 
and mold social institutions. 

Extremists of this school justify attack; for they hold' 
that all government stands in the way of liberty and 
progress. 

Occupying a middle ground between these two schools of 
thought, where they command, as it were, both sides of the 
shield— man's social relations as well as his individual claims 
—stand the advocates of the single tax. Their position is not 
a compromise between the two, as if, one side of the shield 
being white and the other black, they declared both sides to 
be gray; for this would be farther from the truth than 
either of the two extremes. Their position shows them that 
the socialist and the _2j///Zosop/«"caZ anarchist each behold a half 
truth, both of which must be reconciled and harmonized with 
each other before they can be useful to mankind. TJiis the 
single tax will do; for it secures to each his liberty, by restoring 
to him his natural rights, and also, by equalizing opportunities, 
it promotes a normal growth toward co-operation, until soci> 



38 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

ety must assume control of her rights and perform her social 
duties. 

They believe that the state is as much a part of the divine 
scheme as marriage, life, growth or death; that "there is in 
human affairs one order which is the best. That order is not 
always the one which exists; but it is the order which should 
exist for the greatest good of humanity. God knows it and 
wills it; man's duty it is to discover and establish it." 

They believe that this order is founded upon liberty and 
justice, and that all attempts at reform, either in human gov- 
ernment or in society, until these are established, are but 
structures built upon the sand; for the justice of God laughs 
at man's vain attempt to escape it. 

Until all learn that whenever a moral law of the universe 
is broken it is as sure to bring its own punishment as when a 
physical law is broken, and so each learns to become ruler of 
his own conduct — loyally obeying the moral law — until this is 
accomplished, government must restrain the vicious from in- 
juring others. But it is not the office of government to watch 
each individual member of the community that he fall not 
into the fire, or call him in when it rains; but to protect him 
in his rights, or rather to restore to him his liberties, which 
the majority, in the name of law, have taken from him. 

More and more, people are coming to see that governments 
and political parties exist for the well-being of the individual, 
and not for the state. For example: Formerly protective 
tariffs were encouraged to diversify industries for the benefit 
of the state; but today, when individual interests are to be 
subserved, it is seen that if the wage earners are to be pro- 
tected, it were better to protect them directly, and not their 
masters; and also that to tax the many for the benefit of the 
few is a violation of human rights, though done by the power 
of law. "How shallow we are!' exclaimed William Lloyd 
Garrison, in a recent speech. "How we worship makeshifts, 
and lose the proportion of the permanent in our destructive 
habit of magnifying the transient! Always the surface, never 
the depths, until we discover we are sinking." 

It is not claimed that the single tax is a panacea for aU 
human ills; but though simple— as truth and right always are 
— like them, too, the result of its adoption would strike a 
blow directly or indirectly at every falsehood and wrong; foi 
out of the monstrous assertion — the right of a few to own 



ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 39 

the soil and usurp the benefits which society creates— has 
arisen such false doctrines as that money, trade, and compe- 
. tition are, in themselves, evils to be abolished; that interest is 
robbery and wages ignoble. 

One might as well abolish railroads because they occasion 
destruction to life and limb, as to attempt to reform trade by 
abolishing money; for money, like railroads, is a great labor 
saving tool, which assists in the exchange of wealth; and 
without exchange— or trade— man would lapse again into 
barbarism. 

Both parties are benefited in every free exchange. It is 
because one party is not free today that has given rise to the 
belief that trade is robbery. 

And interest? Yes, many things termed interest are rob- 
bery, but true interest— the wages of capital— is as legitimate 
as are the wages of labor; and that fierce cutthroat monster 
called Competition is not competition, but its death struggle, 
under the iron hand of monopoly. 

Of the six indirect causes of monopoly, the single tax will 
strike a death blow at four of them. First, that gigantic mo- 
nopoly—land values— upon which all others rest. Second, all 
special privileges, or trusts, built up and fostered by protect- 
ive tariffs. Third, all franchises, upon which rests the mo- 
nopoly found in railroads, street railways, gas, water, electric 
power, e*tc. Fourth, land mortgages; for the mortgagee is a 
joint owner of the land, and what he receives, though called 
interest, is really rent. 

The two monopolies left are patents and money. While it 
is important that the inventor be protected in his property of 
ideas, as the law is now administered, the benefit goes rather 
to large corporations than to him, thus creating monopolies. 

Money is not wealth, only a representative of value; yet 
the importance of reform regarding it need not be obscured in 
order to show the still greater importance of at once restoring 
to all men an equal right to the soil, from which all wealth is 
extracted. 

Oppressive monopolies and repressive governments once 
overthrown, these will clear the way for such great reforms 
as temperance, woman suffrage and purity. 

When the burden of hard times, unjust taxation and in_ 
dustrial slavery, which now rests with double weight upon 
woman, is lifted from her who has so long borne far more 



40 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 

than her share of the dreary toil, wrongs and anguish of this 
world, then it will be seen that man's wrongs are woman's 
wrongs, and man's rights woman's rights. Then questions of 
equal pay for equal work will disappear, for labor everywhere 
will receive its full reward. 

Then woman, freed from the relic of oriental ideas, will be 
able to perform her full duty, first to herself and then to 
society. Then will she fully realize her own true dignity and 
worth; then will be appreciated her power to elevate and 
transmute the common daily life to poetry and song. 

Under a quickened public conscience, a keener regard for 
the rights of others, it will be possible for society, co-opera- 
tively, to assume responsibilities and duties which today would 
be dangerous to liberty. 

"We have a faith," says Henry George, "that our Father 
in Heaven did not decree poverty, but that it exists because of 
the violation of His law. We have a belief that poverty can 
be abolished by conforming human laws and institutions to 
the great principles of equal justice. And having this faith, 
and having this belief, we have a destiny. That destiny is to 
abolish poverty in the United States of America, and in doing 
so to fire a beacon that will light the whole world ! " 

If every earnest man and woman in our country, rising- 
above party, without leaving his or her particular reform, 
would unite for this one end, we might realize, evfen in our 
own day, the fulfillment of that prophecy of Isaiah: 

"For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, 
and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy 
officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 

"Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor 
destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls 
Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and 
thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteous- 
ness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy 
rearward." 



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